Book cover of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

Book description

USA Today Bestseller
Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography)

"A powerful work of skillful research and personal insight."--Publishers Weekly

Biblical womanhood--the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers--pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Making of Biblical Womanhood as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Barr’s academic chops and in-depth research reveal how the subjugation of women became wrongly synonymous with Christianity.

Barr teaches history at Baylor, so she relies heavily on historic accounts to help us understand how culture bends toward and enforces patriarchy and misogyny, but Christianity does not. She is adamant that those who follow Jesus should never aim for, or practice, hierarchy or subjugation.

While The Making of Biblical Womanhood does lean toward being academic, her work is accessible and relevant. 

From Dorothy's list on identifying and confronting misogyny.

Beth Allison Barr is both a medieval historian and a Southern Baptist preacher’s wife. Her mission with this book is to rock the foundation of the Southern Baptist Church’s dedication to complementarianism – the theological view that men and women have different but complementary roles within church and society. In theory, those roles are equal; in reality, women are relegated to a position as helpmate to their husbands and barred from teaching even children about the basics of their faith.

The SB Church argues that all of this is grounded in the Bible – but as a historian of medieval…

From Sara's list on women in the Middle Ages.

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